Category Archives: Digital Technology

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One of my tasks for getting the blog back up and going is to look at how software for the Mac, Windows and iOS has progressed over the past few years. I like using a client to write blog posts, rather than sitting in the WordPress editor in the web browser. It allows me to write offline, to organise content and to have tools on the device I’m writing on available to do things.

In the past I’ve depended upon Ecto (version 3) on the Mac (and version 2 on Windows). I’ve been using that since Kung-Log (pre-2004) evolved into Ecto and then changed owners since then. Ecto is still available (I think) over at http://illuminex.com/ecto/ and I’ve never had any problems with it with progressive OSX upgrades. That said, it’s starting to feel ‘clunky’ and is hard to get some of the media resources with it. One thing it does have is an Amazon ‘search and insert’ function that I use – especially for book art. For example, I’ve just finished the book below yesterday (not a bad read, and I’ll come back to it later).

But once you’ve put an image etc. into a post it’s hard to reedit it without shifting into HTML mode (which is good to have, but the WYSWYG mode is feeling dated now).

So, if all else fails I’ll keep using it, but it’d be nice to see if the Lenovo Yoga I’ve just got might be a better blogging device than the trusty MacBook (or my iPhone at a pinch). [The Kindle Fire is not really in the running as it keeps getting ‘borrowed’ by people and the iPad is a version 1 iPad running iOS 5 only].

Over the past year or so I’ve been using an older model iPad in my tertiary education environment to access various information and learning management systems and have, on the whole, been disappointed. The iPad works well for consuming media (provided it comes from a ‘kosher’ source), for reading email (but less so for responding to it), for looking information up online and carrying the various documents I need at meetings. It does not work as well for content creation – I have various office suites and an external keyboard and wouldn’t replace my laptop with it – and often doesn’t ‘play nice’ with web systems that have been developed ‘in-house’. And in some cases, e.g. accessing course materials or web-based email systems, it can be a real pain.

In my next job I’ll be working much more with the Moodle LMS (which I haven’t used much since 2006-7 when I was installing and configuring it for distance courses), and I’m wondering with the plethora of mobile devices out there what is the best way to use them with Moodle and the other institutional IT systems. In the last year I’ve tended to start with the app for things like Moodle, Facebook and Endnote and then shifted to the web versions when the apps have begun to struggle or frustrate what I want to do. So this year, I’ll be tracking sites like the ones below and looking for examples of LMS to mobile device connections that work well, what works best for academic staff and what works best for students. (And hopefully getting to try out Android, Windows 8 RT/Phone and iPad/iPhone systems with what we do to see how it all works.) Stay tuned.

Now that the semester has ended and I’m clearing my desk (virtual and otherwise) of things that have accumulated there, here’s a list of links on media, religion and often the intersection between the two that I found interesting.

With RavelUnravel, we’re exploring the tapestry of religious and spiritual identities that make up our communities and the complexities of how we construct and deconstruct identity. We invite you to view the stories that make up RavelUnravel and add to the movement by sharing your own.